It isn't much but it makes me feel better every time I hoard a copper penny. Today's melt value of a copper penny is $0.0184856 and obviously fluctuates with the cost of copper. Apparently in 1982, they switched to making zinc pennies mid year. I've yet to find a zinc penny from 1982 confirmed by weight. The copper pennies weigh more than zinc pennies. In fact, they make sorting machines that will kick out the lightweight pennies, leaving only copper. I have a friend that was sorting them by the bucketful with one about 6 years ago. No shit, he had about 15 five gallon buckets filled with copper pennies.